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Dar envoy decries poverty, terrorism
2005-09-03 07:41:35
By Guardian Reporter
Tanzanian’s ambassador to the United Nations (UN), Augustine Mahiga, has decribed the UN’s 60th anniversary as a perfect time to ’rejuvenate’ the organisation.
Mahiga said this during his visit to Elon University in USA, which was made possible by Build the Village, a Raleigh missionary organisation that helps develop self-sustaining villages in African countries.
Mahiga said the UN is examining its changing role in world affairs and trying to direct its efforts in a way that will help most people.
”The war in Iraq provoked a debate at the UN on whether the UN is still relevant in the fight against terrorism,” Mahiga said.
The ambassador said he was convinced the UN is vital in the fight against terrorism because it works to combat oppression and promote world peace on various fronts.
Mahiga, who will become chair of the UN Security Council in January, said world security was more than just fighting terrorists.
”There is an increasing recognition that security is a multidimensional concept.
Poverty may be a soft threat, but it is a real threat. Pandemic diseases are a real threat to human existence.
Aids is killing 2 million people a year and half of that is in Africa,” he said ,
”Addressing Aids and HIV, hunger and poverty are at the top of the UN’s list of important issues, Mahiga said.
He illustrated the financial gap that exists between Tanzania and the United States.
”One dollar in my country is equivalent to 1,000/- Ninety percent of Tanzania makes less than that $1, he said.
He added that in many remote Tanzanian villages, most inhabitants were illiterate with no concept of what terrorism is. Their main objective is survival.
”They say ’’my basic problem is lack of food, a education for my children, and I need my health to improve,” he said.
Mahiga stressed that world security and development of impoverished countries go hand-in-hand.
”There cannot be security without development, and there cannot be development without security,” he said.
African nations, he said, cannot be left behind while other countries develop. ’India and China are the developing giants today, because they provide markets for Europe and the United States,’ Mahiga said, adding: ”Africa must also begin to develop.’
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