 Mr.
Olara Otunnu,
United Nations Under Secretary General for the Protection
of Children in Armed Conflict, will be the recipient of
the 2005 Sydney Peace Prize.
The Sydney Peace
Prize jury’s citation refers to Mr Otunnu’s ‘lifetime
commitment to human rights, his ceaseless efforts to
protect children in time of war and his promotion of
measures for the healing and social reintegration of
children in the aftermath of conflict’. Making
today’s announcement, Alan Cameron, Chair of the
Sydney Peace Foundation, said, ‘The Sydney Peace
Prize jury recognized Mr Otunnu’s highly significant
international work for the protection of children. We
are enthusiastic about his acceptance of this prestigious
award. We look forward to welcoming him to Sydney in
the first week of November.’
Speaking from New York, Mr Otunnu commented, ‘I am very honoured to receive a Peace Prize which has been previously awarded to eminent advocates of peace and human rights. This award also recognizes the efforts of the United Nations to outlaw and end the use and brutalisation of children in situations of armed conflict. I look forward to highlighting these issues when I come to Sydney. I am very grateful for your recognition of our work.’
In the 1970’s as president of the Students’ Union in Makere University and as Secretary-General of Uganda Freedom Union, Mr. Otunnu played a leading role in the resistance against the regime of Idi Amin. After the overthrow of that regime he was Uganda’s permanent representative to the UN and in the mid 1980’s was his country’s Foreign Minister. From 1990 until 1998 he was President of the International Peace Academy. He has taught at Albany Law School, and the American University in Paris; he also practised law at the firm of Chadbourne & Parke in New York. Mr. Otonnu was educated at Budo, Makere University, Oxford University, and Harvard University where he was a Fulbright scholar. In 1997 following Graca Machel’s landmark study of the impact of war on children, the UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan appointed Mr Otunnu as his special envoy for the protection of children exposed to armed conflict.
Commenting on the Sydney Peace Prize jury’s choice of Mr Otunnu, the Director of the Sydney Peace Foundation, Professor Stuart Rees, said that the jury had been impressed by Mr Otunnu’s passionate commitment, advocacy and initiatives to protect the most innocent and most vulnerable members of a community, children. Mr. Otunnu has been instrumental in placing the protection of war-affected children on the international peace and security agendas, developing the practice of naming and listing of parties to conflict which brutalize children, developing a mechanism to monitor and report on compliance and violations of child soldiers. |
He has travelled the world negotiating to end the use of child soldiers and other violations against children. Nevertheless, his recent report ‘Children and Armed Conflict’ acknowledges that there is continued targeting and brutalisation of children in situations of armed conflict, including their killing, maiming, use as child soldiers, rape and abduction. The report refers to a 'human made catastrophe of tsunami proportions.’ Mr. Otunnu stated, 'Those who destroy the children are destroying the future of our societies. We must stop this process of self destruction.'
Mr. Otunnu is active in many civic initiatives and organizations. He currently serves on the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, the Aspen Institute, Carnegie Corporation of New York, the International Selection Commission of the Philadelphia Liberty Medal, Aspen France and the jury for the Hilton Humanitarian Prize
Previous recipients of the Sydney Peace Prize have included Professor Muhammad Yunus, founder of the Grameen Bank for the Poor; Archbishop Emeritus Desmond Tutu of South Africa; President Xanana Gusmao of East Timor; former Governor General of Australia, Sir William Deane; former United Nations Commissioner for Human Rights Mary Robinson; the Palestinian academic and human rights campaigner, Hanan Ashrawi and, last year the Indian writer, Arundhati Roy.
Media Enquiries: Andrew Potter
02 9351 4514
0414 998 521
Olara Otunnu delivered the City of Sydney Peace Prize Lecture in the Seymour Centre on November 9th, 2005 and received the 2005 Sydney Peace Prize in a gala ceremony in the Great Hall of the University of Sydney on November 10th, 2005 .
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Click on any of the pictures above to view them in full size.
The Sydney Peace Foundation and Gleebooks present a night of theatre at the Seymour Centre. Featuring Colin Friels, Phillip Adams, Sydney Children's Choir, Sydney Solidarity Choir, soloists from the Sydney Symphony Orchestra, Aaron McMillan, and Sam Wagan Watson.
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Dr. Alison Broinowski presents the Sydney Peace Foundation lecture "Geriatric or Adolescent? The Future of the United Nations"
Stephen Roberts Auditorium, University of Sydney
19th May 2005
Left to Right: Prof Stuart Rees AM, Dr Alison Broinowski, Dr. Sev Ozdowski OAM, Alan Cameron AM (Chair of the Sydney Peace Foundation)
Transcript of Dr. Alison Broinowski's Sydney Peace Foundation lecture, Geriatric or Adolescent? The Future of the United Nations is now available.
Is the UN, at 60, entering its golden third age, or is it past it? This is the question that diplomat, author and United Nations authority Dr Alison Broinowksi attempted to answer in her Sydney Peace Foundation address "Geriatric or Adolescent? The Future of United Nations".
163 people crowded the Stephen Roberts Auditorium on May 19 to hear what Dr. Broinowski thought was ahead for the United Nations. Dr. Broinowski told the audience that when Japan was a poor country it was customary for old people, particularly women over 60, who could no longer work, to be taken up a mountain above the snow line and wait to die, in order to relieve the community of the burden of feeding them. The mountain was called Obatsuteruyama, literally, the mountain for throwing away grandma. There are many who might agree that "grandma" UN should also be thrown off a mountainside.
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Dr. Broinowski detailed some of the UN's failings - like its undemocratic structure, ponderous inefficiency, double standards, serpentine agenda, and even cases of corruption and abuses of human rights within the system. But she also highlighted its many achievements in its 60 years. Even if it hasn ’t delivered justice to all, there are more democracies and more protection of human rights now than in 1945; and even if poverty and illiteracy and disease haven ’t been eliminated, the world is closer to that now than it was in 1945.
The UN is still the best system to tackle global emergencies, diseases, and environmental damage; to set rules for international finance and trade; to deal with international crimes like terrorism and smuggling of drugs and people; and to protect millions of refugees. Dr Broinowski asked use to recall what the 1945 Charter said were the UN ’s three basic objectives:
- To save succeeding generations from the scourge of war (that means peace)
- To reaffirm faith and fundamental human rights (that means justice for all)
- To promote social progress and better standards of life in larger freedom (that means economic, social, and cultural development).
These objectives still hold. Dr. Sev Ozdowski, the federal Human Rights Commissioner, responded to Dr. Broinowski. He agreed with Dr. Broinowski that there are still reasons to believe in a positive future for the United Nations, not the least being that it stands as a check for the world' s only remaining superpower, the United States.
Dr. Broinowski encouraged us to believe that "We should be wishing grandma UN, at 60, many happier returns, not joining those who want to starve her and let her freeze to death."
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