UNHCR chief criticises world 'blind' over pursuit of military dominance

The UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) denounced, this Monday (28), the wars that plague a world “blinded” by the search for military dominance, in a speech at the Security Council in which it lamented the “chronic” failure in maintaining world peace.

“From Sudan to Ukraine, from the Sahel to Myanmar, from the Democratic Republic of Congo to Haiti, violence has become the hallmark of our time,” said Commissioner Filippo Grandi.

Each of the 120 conflicts listed in the world by the International Committee of the Red Cross is “fueled by the same perverse but powerful fantasy: that peace is for the weak, that the only way to end war is not through negotiation but by wounding the enemy so badly that only two options remain: surrender or be pulverized.”

In this world “blinded by the idea that only total military victory counts, it should come as no surprise that the norms of international humanitarian law, once respected or at least proclaimed”, are “discarded, disregarded with the same ease as the thousands of lives destroyed in the pursuit of domination”, he added, citing Sudan and Ukraine as examples.

“I realize that I am not teaching you, Council members, anything – which in itself is an accusation – but unfortunately this is the reality of our world,” he criticized.

Maintaining peace “is its primary responsibility, a responsibility that, forgive me for repeating, this body has chronically failed to fulfill,” Grandi insisted. However, he urged the Council, on behalf of the 123 million displaced people and refugees worldwide, “not to resign itself to the defeat of diplomacy.”

The High Commissioner once again lamented the “critical situation of humanitarian aid financing”, without mentioning the United States, which has decided to drastically reduce its foreign aid.

“There is talk of giving priority to national interests, to military spending, issues that are certainly legitimate (…) but that are not incompatible with aid, on the contrary,” he said.

“Aid makes stability possible. Freezing or cutting aid budgets is already having deadly consequences for millions of people. In particular, it means abandoning displaced people to their fate, withdrawing support from sometimes fragile host countries and, ultimately, undermining stability itself,” he warned.

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