THE President, Mrs Robinson last night called for a new worldwide response through a "revitalised United Nations" to humanitarian crises when she delivered the prestigious Churchill Lecture at the Guildhall in London.
In a lecture entitled "Prevention, Response and Rehabilitation", Mrs Robinson told an invited audience that current television images of suffering in Central Africa reflected a problem which was still "unaddressed and unresolved".
After recalling her visits to Rwanda, she said the international community had failed that country by allowing its suffering to "slip down the agenda" when the cameras moved on to cover other atrocities, and she suggested the world had much to learn in response to these crises.
"A revitalised United Nations could and should play a critical role with the wholehearted and unequivocal support of its member-states, to provide the necessary vision.
It needs a new set of priorities and a managerial structure which addresses more vigorously issues such as good governance, large-scale demilitarisation, the promotion of human rights and international law and emphasis on the social and economic sustainable growth of areas affected," she said.
The 700 guests included the Irish Ambassador to Britain, Mr Ted Barrington, two former Northern Ireland secretaries, Mr Peter Brooke and Mr Tom King, the barrister, Mr Michael Mansfield, who represented five of the Birmingham Six, and the television presenter, Mr Eamonn Holmes.
The lecture, organised by the English Speaking Union, celebrates the anniversary of Sir Winston Churchill's birth. Previous speakers have included Princess Anne, two former American presidents, Ronald Reagan and Gerald
Ford, and Dr Conor Cruise O'Brien.
Although Mrs Robinson acknowledged that the problems ahead were extraordinarily daunting", she remained optimistic that the broader lessons would be learned.
"Despite huge suffering, brutality, conflict, war and violence, people in the end yearn for peace and recovery. At some time, a chance for peace and reconciliation emerges. We must seize that chance courageously and quickly. If we miss that moment, it may be lost and with it lives, hope and a dynamic for peace," she said.
To laughter, Mrs Robinson told the audience that she lived "only a stone's throw" from where Sir Winston Churchill grew up as a boy and completely understood his difficulty "in making out through the trees a rather menacing approach" to Aras an Uachtaran.
"Sir Winston Churchill was an extraordinary man whose contribution to the survival of your country and its freedoms, indeed the very ideal of a free people, will never be forgotten. The clarity of his vision at a time of confusion was one of the great individual acts of this century."
After her lecture, Sir John Coles, the Permanent Undersecretary at the Foreign Office, gave the vote of thanks and describing it as a "memorable event" because her speech was so "lucid and deeply sincere".
"These are rich and creative ideas which will certainly be examined in London, African capitals, other European capitals and much further afield," he said.
Before Mrs Robinson was escorted to the reception, Baroness Brigstocke, the chairwoman of the English Speaking Union, presented her with a medal of honour as a mark "of great esteem and great gratitude" for promoting international understanding.