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Stanford Photo Exhibit Pays Tribute to U Thant
New York, Oct 27 2009 7:10PM
The greatest legacy of the former United Nations chief U Thant is his belief in the dignity of the individual, a senior official with the world body said tonight as he helped open a photographic exhibition dedicated to the Organization’s third Secretary-General.
Kiyo Akasaka, the
Under-Secretary-General for Communications and Public
Information, told the opening of the exhibit – which is
being staged at the Stamford campus of the University of
Connecticut in the United States – that U Thant was a
visionary who had realized that the UN “needed to meet the
needs and hopes of peoples everywhere.
“He created,
or laid the foundations for, many of the institutions that
we have today working to alleviate poverty, to protect the
environment, and to safeguard health,” Mr. Akasaka said,
adding that U Thant had steered the UN through “a period
of great change” during his tenure between 1961 and 1971.
“He tackled a broad range of challenges, from
successfully concluding the Congo operation, to easing
tensions during the Cuban missile crisis, helping to reach a
peaceful end to the Viet Nam War, and advocating for the end
of apartheid in South Africa.”
Mr. Akasaka also
noted that U Thant presided over “an intense period of
decolonization and the birth of new nations across Asia and
Africa” and stood firmly for the independence during a
period of deep Cold War tensions.
But he stressed
that the most important impact of U Thant, who also served
as a diplomat from Myanmar, was “his belief in the dignity
of the individual, and the need to place the well-being of
the individual at the centre of all of our efforts.”
In his last report as Secretary-General, U Thant
wrote that “the worth of the individual human being is the
most unique and precious of all our assets and must be the
beginning and end of all our efforts. Governments, systems,
ideologies and institutions come and go, but humanity
remains.”
Mr. Akasaka observed that “these words
embody the spirit of the United Nations and continue to
serve as our guiding light today.”
This year also
marks the centenary of the birth of U Thant, who died in
1974.
ENDS
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