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BSS-05
PM-PEACE SUMMIT
Settle all int’l disputes, fight terrorism, PM urges global leaders
NEW YORK, Sept 25, 2018 (BSS) – Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina has urged the
world leaders to settle all international disputes and fight emerging global
challenges like terrorism.
“To ensure a peaceful world in future the world leaders must be commited
to settle all international disputes through peaceful means and prevent
conflict in all circumstances as yet peace is eluding,” she told the Nelson
Mandela Peace Summit held at General Assembly Hall at the UN Headquarters
here on Monday afternoon.
The peace summit was organised on the occasion of the 100th birth
anniversary of Nelson Mandela, a South African anti-apartheid revolutionary,
political leader, and philanthropist who served as President of South Africa
from 1994 to 1999.
Sheikh Hasina also said that the world leaders must fight emerging global
challenges like terrorism, through stopping the flow of financing to the
terrorists, and the source of supply of arms to the terrorists and their
outfits.
“We’ve to fight climate change and built upon resilience, promote and
protect human rights in any circumstances and nurture culture of peace and
non-violence,” she said.
“We’ve to strengthen also cooperation to achieve sustainable development
goals, promote tolerance, preserve diversity, protect the religious and
ethnic minorities from discrimination and exploitation,” she added.
The Prime Minister said yet, peace is eluding us and conflicts are far
from being resolved, while human rights and fundamental freedoms, which
leaders like Mandela fought for, are yet to be secured.
“People in many parts of the world are suffering from hunger and
malnourishment,” she said.
Noting that racism, populism and intolerance are on the rise, Sheikh
Hasina said the people in many societies are facing discrimination, forced
displacement, torture and even genocide due to their ethnic and religious
identity.
In this connection Sheikh Hasina mentioned that over one million
Rohingyas have taken shelter in Bangladesh to evade ethnic cleansing in
Myanmar.
She said that Bangladesh is committed to global peace since its
independence in 1971. The peacekeepers of Bangladesh are saving lives in many
parts of the world, she added.
“We cooperate with the international community in sustaining peace
through conflict prevention, development and promotion of human rights.
Bangladesh has introduced the culture of peace resolution in the UN General
Assembly since two decades,” she said.
After successful implementation of Millennium Development Goals, the
prime minister said, international community has adopted the Agenda-2030 in
2015. “The agenda for sustainable development encompasses on aspects of human
life – from hunger to inequality,” she said.
Sheikh Hasina said that the vision of Father of the Nation Bangabandhu
to establish peace has guided us all along.
“Our investment in poverty alleviation, public health and education has
allowed us to ensure wellbeing of our people and reduce inequality. We have
created opportunities for individuals through innovative means and thus
established peace through socio-economic development,” she said.
Talking about the life of Nelson Mandela, she said that he began his
political life as a leader of his people to fight apartheid in South Africa.
Later, with his sacrifice, dedication, compassion for people, he became the
undisputed leader of the humanity and peace, freedom, unity those have been
his life-long mantra.
Like Nelson Mandela, the prime minister said, Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur
Rahman too has liberated “us from the oppressors and gave us freedom and they
both spent major parts of their life in prison, fighting for their people.”
She mentioned that Bangabandhu was sent to jail time and again from 1948
to 1971 and while in prison he wrote diaries and a number of books.
The premier said the biography ‘Unfinished Memories’ and ‘Prison Diary’
written by Bangabandhu have recorded his struggle for peace and a just life
for his people, like the ‘Long Walk to Freedom’ by Nelson Mandela.
“Let us work together to achieve his dream and let him rest in peace,”
she said.
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