Angela Kane: Disarmament and Peacekeeping
Dear Madam Mayor, Dear Petra Broistedt, Dear Ms. Baran, Dear Dagmar Freudenberg, Dear host Erich Sidler, but most importantly, esteemed Angela Kane,
It is a great honor for me to congratulate you today on receiving the Göttingen Peace Prize 2024.
I was once scheduled to give a laudatory speech here – for Amnesty International. But this time, it wasn’t external circumstances preventing me from attending, as it was in 2010 – even though Klaus Weselsky certainly gave it his best effort.
1. Truly Earned
You have not only deserved this prize; you have truly earned it yourself.
That you would one day rise to the rank of Undersecretary-General of the United Nations was not foreseeable during your youth in Hameln. You were well-prepared with your studies, from Munich to Johns Hopkins – but rising to the rank of USG within the United Nations is by no means a given.
Even less so, considering that Germany’s foreign policy only began recognizing you as a German at the United Nations very late. To this day, Germany’s personnel policy in international organizations remains unsystematic and unprofessional – as we most recently witnessed at the International Criminal Court.
As a result, Germany’s representation at the UN, as the second-largest and most reliable contributor, is not only worse than that of major nations. Many smaller countries do far better.
You forged your own path despite the personnel policies of the Federal Republic – congratulations for that.
When we first met by the Hudson River in New York, you were already Assistant Secretary-General for Political Affairs.
2. The Fight for Democracy and Human Rights
You came well-prepared for this role, with experience from peace missions in Ethiopia and Eritrea to operations in El Salvador, Guatemala, or the Congo.
The United Nations was founded after World War II to prevent wars between states. But in these conflicts, it was not – or not only – about wars between states.
We Europeans are shocked by the return of war in Europe. Putin’s war of aggression against Ukraine takes us back to a time we believed we had overcome with the Helsinki Agreement and the Paris Charter.
All European states committed themselves in 1975 at the Conference on Security and Cooperation not to change borders in Europe by force and to renounce the threat of violence.
Since the time of Willy Brandt, Egon Bahr, and Leonid Brezhnev, we had not seen interstate wars in Europe.
What the Soviet Union under Brezhnev agreed upon is now being trampled underfoot by Putin’s Russia in Ukraine.
However, the absence of wars between states in Europe did not mean peace in the world.
Wars of a new type spread in countries of the Global South – civil wars, uprisings against dictatorships, and anti-colonial liberation wars.
In these wars, non-state actors fought alongside state actors. Soldiers and mercenaries, freedom fighters, terrorists, and criminal warlords all blurred the lines between political and business interests. The distinction between external threats and internal affairs disappeared.
The “maintenance of peace” and “international security” is the core mandate of the UN Charter. To achieve this, the UN aims to foster “cooperation between nations.”
But while the UN is an alliance of nations, the new types of wars threaten peace and security from within states.
These were the challenges you faced in your missions, dear Angela Kane.
It involved conflicts. One does not make friends when advocating for democracy, the rule of law, and universal human rights in places like El Salvador or Guatemala. You rose to this challenge.
You were one of the first to highlight the systematic use of sexual violence, especially against women, in places like Congo.
The Congo has been engulfed in a war for 30 years, where rape is a weapon of war.
Addressing and combating this required great courage.
You, Angela Kane, demonstrated this courage. Thank you.
For this, too, you are receiving the Göttingen Peace Prize 2024 today.
3. Chemical Weapons in Syria
What began as brutal suppression of a broad democracy movement turned into a civil war, exacerbated by severe droughts caused by the climate crisis.
This civil war was seen by other states as an opportunity to violently impose their own interests in Syria, directly or indirectly.
Europe supported the opposition politically. The Gulf States saw an opportunity to end the rule of an urban Shiite minority over a rural Sunni population and backed a regime change with money and arms.
Iran wanted to secure Assad’s rule, sending in its Revolutionary Guards, supported by Lebanon’s Hezbollah.
In eastern Syria, ISIS emerged, a product of the U.S. war against Iraq. The U.S. fought ISIS in both Syria and Iraq from the air and on the ground, with Kurdish allies.
Russia wanted to retain its military base in the eastern Mediterranean at all costs.
Turkey feared an autonomous Kurdish state and felt threatened by the number of refugees. It sent troops into Syria, cooperated with ISIS, even threatened the U.S., and continues to carry out ethnic cleansing in formerly Kurdish areas.
Ultimately, the common interest of Russia and the U.S. in fighting ISIS prevailed.
With Russian and Iranian support, Assad secured his rule over a shattered and fragmented country. Nonetheless, Syria, which floods the Middle East with the drug Captagon, has been readmitted to the Arab League.
For his grip on power, Assad spared no war crime. Among these war crimes was the use of chemical weapons – including on August 21, 2013. This crossed a red line publicly drawn by U.S. President Barack Obama.
A military intervention by the U.S. against Syria’s chemical weapons would have disrupted the informal division of labor between Russia and the U.S. Until then, Russia monitored Syrian airspace in the west, while the U.S. did so in the east. If Obama carried out his threat to respond militarily to chemical weapons, the so-called “deconflicting” between Russia and the U.S. (as described by U.S. Ambassador Susan Rice) risked becoming a confrontation between the two powers.
That this escalation did not happen is thanks to two women. One of them is you.
The other is also named Angela – Angela Merkel.
As High Representative for Disarmament Affairs at the UN, you led the mission that confirmed the presence and use of these weapons of mass destruction in Syria.
Your mission in the country faced enormous threats. You risked much.
But you laid the groundwork for these weapons to be removed from Syria in an international mission and ultimately destroyed in Munster, with participation from NATO states and Russia.
This is what peacekeeping and disarmament look like in practice.
Without your efforts, Angela Merkel’s own efforts would not have succeeded. The Chancellor sought to prevent this escalation, convincing both Obama and Putin of this solution. A UN-organized removal of these weapons was a face-saving compromise for all involved.
Thank you for this.
Allow me a side note. In the CDU, it has become fashionable either to blame Angela Merkel for everything or to ignore her. Yet CDU and CSU governed this country for 16 years under her leadership.
I have no reason to flatter Angela Merkel. I spent 16 years in opposition to her and the CDU/CSU. I strongly opposed her stance on the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003.
But: Angela Merkel kept Germany out of the fatal intervention in Libya.
Angela Merkel, through her efforts to remove chemical weapons, also prevented an escalation in the Syrian war with unpredictable consequences.
Without your work, Ms. Kane, this would not have been possible.
- Disarmament in Times of Rearmament
You have remained committed to disarmament even after your retirement.
Disarmament has become even more difficult in times of rearmament.
Russia’s war of aggression has mercilessly exposed the deficiencies in Germany’s national defense.
The NATO states’ permissiveness toward Putin’s aggression under Trump shows that we must prepare to secure our own defense independently of the U.S. Even former Republicans like Robert Kagan now fear that the U.S. elections could lead to what he calls “Trump’s dictatorship.”
Germany and Europe face enormous challenges here.
Germany is providing contradictory responses.
With the special fund, F-35 fighter jets are being purchased to ensure participation in the U.S. nuclear weapons program. At the same time, Germany, along with NATO states Norway and Belgium, is an observer of the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons.
The latter is a response to the fact that the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty has failed in one crucial aspect. The nuclear disarmament promised by the nuclear powers under this treaty has stagnated for a decade. On the contrary, all nuclear powers – the U.S., Russia, China, the UK, and France – are modernizing their nuclear arsenals and expanding them.
We are witnessing a renaissance of nuclear deterrence. This is nothing less than a mutual suicide threat – we could also call it the destruction of humanity. It would go beyond the scope of this laudatory speech to delve further into these contradictions.
But even in times of mutual rearmament, there is, as there was during the Cold War, an interest in mutual arms control. It is also a prerequisite for any form of agreed-upon disarmament.
For this, we need treaties like the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons. For this, we need strong international institutions, such as the IAEA.
For this, we need a strong United Nations.
You, Ms. Kane, have dedicated your professional life to this United Nations. You continue to advocate for advancing the UN today, for example, through your work with the German Society for the United Nations (DGVN).
For this as well, you are receiving the Göttingen Peace Prize today.
- Strong United Nations
This initiative is urgently needed. It has become fashionable to criticize the United Nations and its Secretary-General António Guterres, especially for insisting on the observance of clear norms of international law.
United Nations humanitarian organizations like OCHA and UNRWA are being met with calls for boycotts. Yet, the legal situation is simple:
Anyone who wants Europe and Germany to stop funding the Palestinian aid agency UNRWA is essentially arguing that Israel should bear the costs for humanitarian aid, healthcare, and education in Gaza and the West Bank.
Israel, as the occupying power, is obligated under international law to assume these costs.
That these costs have been covered by the international community, particularly Europe and Germany, for decades is justified – but no reason to criticize them for it.
We are witnessing today how states increasingly block the global organization for maintaining peace and security. It is bizarre that this blockade often comes from states that, as permanent members of the UN Security Council, hold special roles and responsibilities – the P5.
The use of the veto for selfish national interests has been practiced by all P5 states – most strongly by the Soviet Union/Russia and the U.S., though also by France and the UK, which have recently shown more restraint. However, China’s use of the veto, which had previously been very reserved, has increased.
That the P5 states often veto when they themselves are involved in illegal wars – whether in the U.S. wars in Vietnam or Iraq, the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, or now Russia’s invasion of Ukraine – is bitter, but not entirely surprising.
Thus, Germany had to turn to the General Assembly, where a vast majority of the United Nations condemned Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. But without binding consequences, as Russia blocked the Security Council. Bitter.
What concerns me even more are the vetoes that prevent the UN from fulfilling its core mission: providing humanitarian aid to people in need.
Russia repeatedly blocked – in covert cooperation with Erdogan – the delivery of aid to the besieged Idlib in Syria.
Currently, we are witnessing with horror the war in Gaza. This renewed Gaza war was triggered by the largest antisemitic massacre since National Socialism. It claimed 1,200 victims. More than 100 hostages still await their release. The group responsible is the Muslim Brotherhood faction known as Hamas.
Israel not only has the right but the duty to eliminate the threat to its people posed by Hamas.
The fight against Hamas has now claimed 30,000 Palestinian lives. Over 1 million people have been displaced. With the announced offensive in Rafah, further casualties are expected.
This is why the German government is pushing for a humanitarian ceasefire. Thousands in Israel have called for a ceasefire – also to secure the release of the hostages. The call for an immediate ceasefire has been supported in the UN General Assembly by about as many states as supported Germany’s resolutions against Russia’s war in Ukraine.
In the UN Security Council, 13 of the 15 members voted for Algeria’s proposal for a ceasefire – including France, Slovenia, Switzerland, Japan, and South Korea. The UK abstained. Only the U.S. veto blocked the resolution.
Once again, a veto by a permanent member prevented the UN from fulfilling its core task of providing humanitarian aid to people caught in the horrors of war.
No, it is not the UN that is weak.
The United Nations is being weakened by the great powers.
That is why we need reforms to limit the misuse of the veto. Only in this way can we strengthen the global governance of the United Nations.
For this, we need initiatives like the DGVN. For this, we need your commitment, dear Angela Kane. Let this award also serve as an encouragement for your continued efforts.
For a strong United Nations.
Thank you.