The traditional role of peacekeeping needs to be re-examined in the face of the world's growing number of conflicts, the President, Mrs Robinson, has told a conference on violence and human coexistence. Mrs Robinson warned that unless more emphasis was put on preventing violence and on putting in more resources to build up security in society, the world would witness an increasing number of devastating conflicts.
However, military interventions were usually "the least desirable option", she told the World Congress on Violence and Human Coexistence, which opened at University College Dublin yesterday.
Mrs Robinson said that since she took office in 1990, 31/2 million people had been killed in conflicts. More than four million people had been internally displaced and eight million had fled as refugees. This was an unacceptable level of violence.
"At the end of the Cold War, we had hoped that the dark forces in our society had been put to rest. However, a decade after the fall of the Berlin Wall, the experience of places such as Bosnia, Rwanda and Somalia have tempered that mood of optimism."
She said some UN operations, like those in Namibia and Mozambique, had been relatively successful. However, others, such as those in Rwanda and Somalia, had failed.
Many of the factors which explained why violence occurred could be understood by studying countries which had no violence. "But you can't address the problem unless you have the resources to do it. And if you fail, you end up undermining your original objectives."
Mrs Robinson said she placed great "significance" on the plans of the UN Secretary-General, Mr Kofi Annan, to put human rights at the centre of UN activities.
She also singled out the drugs trade as a growing problem.
