U.S. REPRESENTATIVE TO UN CONCERNED BURUNDI IS SLIDING INTO VIOLENT TURMOIL

FROM:  U.S. STATE DEPARTMENT
Samantha Power
U.S. Permanent Representative to the United Nations
New York, NY
May 8, 2015
AS DELIVERED

Good afternoon. We just heard a very concerning briefing from Special Envoy of the Secretary-General for the Great Lakes Region, Said Djinnit, about the situation in Burundi.

This is the third time the Council has come together just in the last month to address the need for all parties in Burundi to refrain from violence and intimidation before, during, and after elections, and to actively support the conditions for a peaceful, timely, credible, and inclusive elections process.

What we are seeing is a Burundi sliding into violent turmoil. The intensity of the violence has increased this week. Live rounds, water cannons, and arbitrary arrest have been used against protestors. We’ve now seen reports of grenade attacks.

While reports of those killed and arrested vary, we know that on May 4th at least three protestors were shot dead. On May 6th, another half dozen people were reportedly killed, and over the last three days, we have started to see more gruesome attacks against alleged members of the Imbonerakure, including a lynching and separate burning.

Amidst this increase in violence, refugee flows into Rwanda, Tanzania, and the DRC have skyrocketed to over 50,000 people. Any further violence carries with it the risk of irreversible consequences not just for Burundian citizens, but for the people of the Great Lakes region writ-large.

This violence is due to two very foreseeable and very preventable events. First, President Nkurunziza’s decision to seek a third term, which the United States has clearly stated is a violation of the Arusha Agreement. Despite warnings from multiple parts of Burundian society and the international community that such a move would lead to violence, Nkurunziza decided to move forward. He rejected, and indeed was extremely dismissive, of the possibility that his moving out in abrogation of the Arusha Agreement would generate protests and would result in violence. He ruled that out – out of hand – and now we are seeing, unfortunately, the consequence of his decisions and of his dismissiveness of these risks. Second, the government’s continued and relentless crackdown against the people’s rights to peacefully protest and freely express their views has itself increased violence. The severe restrictions placed on the media – traditional and social – have only exacerbated these problems.

While the government claims that President Nkurunziza’s third term is constitutional, and the Constitutional Court ruling this week supported that finding, we must underscore the apparent lack of judicial impartiality that led to this decision. The Vice President of Burundi’s Constitutional Court fled to safety in Rwanda this week and refused to succumb to the government’s pressure to validate President Nkurunziza’s third term.

This Vice President said judges, “were subjected to enormous pressure and even death threats,” stating that, “those opposed to a third term - violating the constitution and the Arusha Agreement - were afraid, because they were put under pressure.” “We risk our lives,” he said, “so judges had to get behind the third term and join the camp supporting it.”

We welcome the leadership being shown by the region. The foreign ministers of Rwanda, Tanzania, Kenya and Angola were in Burundi this week to engage all parties to seek a way out the crisis. The heads of state of the East African Community will meet next week in Dar es Salaam, where we hope the crisis in Burundi is front and center – and we have every reason to believe it will be.

We also welcome African Union Chairwoman Dlamini-Zuma’s statement yesterday that Nkurunziza should not seek a third term and that what is most important at this critical time is to ensure a peaceful environment conducive to elections.

The government of Burundi has a window to stop and reverse the outbreak of violence by agreeing to allow for peaceful protests, easing restrictions to media, respecting human rights, and preventing violence by the Imbonerakure and the security forces. To date neither President Nkurunziza nor his government has condemned the violence by the youth militia or called for restraint by the police. We urge them to do so immediately; failure to take these steps will only heighten the scale of violence and increase the risk of this turning into a regional crisis.

With that, I’m happy to take a few questions.

Reporter: Madame Ambassador, thank you. What more can the Council do on this issue, given that Russia has sort of made clear that they think it’s a constitutional issue that the Council shouldn’t get involved in. Did you raise the possibility of threatening sanctions? And, what can you tell us about these reports that the President’s security are distributing weapons throughout the country and training militia? How concerned are you by this and what do you know about it?

Ambassador Power: Okay, let me get all of this. Let me just start with the reports that you mentioned. You might recall that, now, more than six months ago, the security advisor to the prior UN mission in Burundi was expelled from Burundi because of the leak of a report alleging the massive distribution of weapons to the Imbonerakure.

Now, we hear that some of those weapons are being used. We hear of threats by the youth militia toward people who peacefully protest against President Nkurunziza’s decision to pursue a third term. These are extremely alarming reports. There’s no question that there are weapons in the hands of people who are not affiliated with the traditional security establishment—with the armed forces and with the police. And the fact that these reports are increasing, not decreasing; the fact that prior reports appear to be credible; and the fact that the government’s only response to those reports was in effect to shoot the messenger—not literally, thankfully—but to expel the BNUB security advisor and indeed to end the prior mission, which had much more of a monitoring role than the current election-related mission. These are all extremely worrying facts.

In terms of sanctions, let me just say that the United States is very carefully monitoring the situation, and we are prepared to take targeted measures, including visa bans or sanctions, against those who plan or participate in wide-spread violence of the kind that we all fear. The United Nations Security Council has threatened action, and it remains to be seen what action the Council would come together in support of.

I think for all of the disagreement perhaps here or there about the constitution, there is no disagreement about the need for the Council to do everything in its power to prevent the situation from spiraling out of control. I mean, the Council is alarmed. I don’t think there’s been a period, maybe even in the last decade, where the Council has met this many times on Burundi consecutively. So right now, we’re emphasizing support for Said Djinnit, who’s actually trying to bring the parties together and see if there’s a peaceful way out of this crisis, and I think we will get at the “what are the next steps” again if these negotiations cannot bear fruit.

Reporter: Thank you. You have been to Bangui not once, but twice. So I must ask you, in light of these horrific allegations, are you satisfied that both France and the United Nations initiated this investigation quickly enough? Made sure that the soldiers were removed from that mission quickly enough? And that all the steps towards accountability have been taken? And related, does this draw new attention to all the reforms that have been called for in the past, on how to handle sex abuse in peacekeeping?

Ambassador Power: Thank you for the question. It’s an extremely important one. The allegations are completely horrific. You know, the fact that soldiers who are entrusted with the protection of civilians, the protection of young people—if these allegations prove true, again, it is such a profound violation, not only of the dignity and physical security of individuals in their most vulnerable state, but it is a complete abrogation of trust, between those who are alleged to come as protectors and those who violate that trust and take advantage of, again, the most acute vulnerability any of us could imagine experiencing. A vulnerability that comes from being desperate for food. From being desperate for protection.

So we don’t know, again, the full facts of the case at this stage—that is the case of the allegations of sexual abuse—whether those will be borne out. They are certainly very credible and very disturbing allegations. So it is essential that those countries whose soldiers are alleged to have been involved in crimes of this magnitude act aggressively to track down the facts and to punish anybody responsible.

In terms of the UN and the member state’s handling of the issue, I think it is extremely important that an impartial investigation be done also of that, on top of investigating the allegations themselves. When allegations like this are made, and sadly, this is not the first time that peacekeepers have been accused of sexual abuse of civilians who’ve put their faith in the international community. When allegations like these are made, speed is essential, absolutely imperative, because for as long, potentially, as crimes like these are being committed, then individuals are vulnerable to the same individuals who are alleged to be carrying out the crimes.

The safety of those who are brave enough to come forward, notwithstanding having potentially been abused, the safety of those individuals, those witnesses—the confidentiality of their testimony—that’s also essential.

So there are a number of elements to the appropriate handling of cases like this, and we need this impartial investigation of the handling to be carried out swiftly. We need all individuals, both in member states themselves and within the UN organization who were involved in the handling of this, again, grave and grotesque set of allegations, to involve themselves and come forward and make everything that they know available. And, I think the investigation needs to span, again, from start to finish. Because there were a lot of different stages to this.

But we need a system here, number one, where peacekeepers are vetted appropriately before they go into the field. Number two, at the slightest hint that peacekeepers could be carrying out abuses—that needs to be reported up the chain and investigated extremely swiftly. And we, again, like everyone, are concerned about the length of time between the alleged crimes and the time at which the appropriate authorities were made aware, and the lag between the time at which the appropriate authorities took the required action.

Reporter: Follow up on that? One question? Thanks. Appreciate it. One issue that has arisen that may not even need to wait for an investigation is that the Central African Republic says that they were never told of this, and given that these were their citizens, I wonder if you—does the U.S. think that when the UN system becomes aware of charges such as these, that the host country should be told? There’s also this issue, in the UN Dispute Tribunal ruling, that the Under Secretary General of Peacekeeping was reported, and the UN didn’t seem to dispute it, to have said that the whistleblower should resign or be suspended. And I wonder, this seems like a pretty serious charge. What do you think of that? Do you think that that is appropriate? What do you think of the treatment of the whistleblower who brought it to light?

Ambassador Power: I think, on a lot of these issues, we’re all going to be better off if we allow an impartial investigation to take hold. And, I think, you raise a really, really important issue about host country involvement, and we’d want to, again, get the facts on that. Certainly, it is the case that the host country itself, of course, has the sovereign responsibility for the protection of its citizens, and so, looking at what role Central African Republic authorities played or didn’t play has to be part of this.

And then, in terms of the individual who disclosed the allegations, who worked for the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, again, it’s extremely important that any individual who comes into possession of allegations of this gravity acts swiftly. It is also extremely important that victim and witness safety be a very significant, a primary consideration as well. And so again, the impartial investigation will look at the handling and how both the issue of speed and the issue of victim and witness protection—how those issues were handled.

Ambassador Power: I think on a lot of these issues we’re all going to be better off if we allow an impartial investigation to take hold. And I think you raise a really important issue on host country involvement

Looking at what role Central African Republic authorities played or didn’t play has to be part of this.

It’s extremely important that any individual who comes into possession of allegations of this gravity acts swiftly, it is also extremely important that victim ad witness safety be a very significant, a primary consideration, as well.

Reporter: Ambassador, back to Burundi: I wonder if you could talk about the way the international architecture is set up. There’s been a lot of criticism from the Burundians themselves that the international community has been very slow on this issue – the fact that we do have 50,000 refugees and when the international community has been very well aware of what was going to happen. What can you say about how the international community responds to these issues, given what we’ve seen in South Sudan and Syria today?

Ambassador Power: Well, the international community, as represented by the UN Security Council, has actually been quite aggressive in the preventive diplomacy phase. I mean, the fact that just two months ago, or whenever it was, we all traveled all the way to Burundi as a way of sending a message to President Nkurunziza about what the risks were if he went ahead in violation of the letter and the spirit of the Arusha agreement. That’s actually quite unusual. And everybody on the Security Council, just as in the broader international community, is well aware of the history in Burundi, and of course the broader region, and how quickly political disputes can get – can descend into ethnic disputes. And Arusha enshrined a social compact that has allowed Burundi to make tremendous progress. And, you know, for the sake of Burundians who suffered so much and worked so hard to reconcile, and to get to the place they have gotten to, in terms of stability, including relative political stability – for that to be endangered. Sub-regional organizations sent the message that that was imperiled; regional organizations sent that message, including Dlamini-Zuma – not just yesterday, but over the course of recent months – and the Security Council traveled all the way there to send that message. I myself have been to Burundi twice in the last year to send that message. I believe the first Cabinet member to travel to Burundi in a long time, on behalf of President Obama, in order to send that message. So it is clear things are not going well in Burundi; and all of us want to learn if there was more we could have done. But at the end of the day, President Nkurunziza has to put his people first. The international community can’t make him privilege the welfare of his people, privilege the end of violence, over his own personal desire to seek a third term. He has to make that choice. And I think the message from the international community was loud and clear, and it’s a message that he has chosen not to hear. Thank you.

Reporter: (Inaudible, off mic) Syria?

Ambassador Power: I’ll just do that real quick. I’m not going to get ahead of the diplomatic discussions, but you all know that resolution 2118 – best remembered as the resolution that dismantled Syria’s declared chemical weapons program – bans the use of chemical weapons. And you know that resolution 2209 – the chlorine resolution – makes very clear that the use of chlorine as a weapon is chemical weapons use. And we heard in the Arria session devastating reports. I believe you all met as well with the doctors who treated the victims of chlorine attacks. So we believe, and it’s clear that many Council members agree, that we have got to have a means of establishing who was carrying out these chlorine attacks. To us, the Fact Finding Mission’s report was very clear – from the OPCW – it described hundreds of witnesses with the same symptoms. Victims who died without a cut on their bodies, just because they suffocated on this gas; and witnesses who described the smell of chlorine emanating at just the moment a helicopter came and dropped a barrel bomb on a particular building; the victims themselves smelled like chlorine. There are no allegations of how chlorine could be disbursed in the manner the OPCW has described it has been disbursed absent, again, these air attacks. Everybody who has been interviewed has described a correlation between the chlorine-related deaths and the dropping of what appear to be chlorine barrel bombs from helicopters. And, as you know, only the regime has helicopters. So we believe the factual record is quite straightforward and devastating in terms of Syrian regime use. But it is, as a factual matter, true that no one in the international system is mandated to establish attribution for these attacks; and we need to fix that. So we hope that we can make progress on a resolution to ensure that there is a mechanism that will not only establish chlorine use, but establish who carried out that use.

AMBASSADOR POWER'S REMARKS ON SCREENING OF SELMA

FROM:  U.S. STATE DEPARTMENT
Samantha Power
U.S. Permanent Representative to the United Nations
New York, NY
April 23, 2015
AS DELIVERED

Thank you very much, Under Secretary-General Gallach, for your introduction and thanks to the entire Department of Public Information team for the important work you do in telling the story of the work of the United Nations. You give people outside these walls a deeper understanding of the ideals that this institution was created 70 years ago to embody, and which we fight for every day.

And good evening ambassadors, colleagues, ladies and gentlemen and a special welcome to the young people from those twenty eight schools in New York and New Jersey. It is truly thrilling to look out and see so many young faces and I actually find myself asking whether the world would look differently if you were at more of our events at the UN. Because when we look out at your faces we really see the stakes of what we are trying to achieve and maybe if you were here more often we’d do a better job at overcoming divisions to promote human rights and human dignity and peace and security. So don’t make this your last visit to the UN. I hope to see more of you.

I have the privilege of just sharing a few thoughts with you before you see the remarkable film “Selma,” and I know you are here to do that. Tonight’s screening and discussion allow us an opportunity to look back 50 years, and to reflect on and be inspired by the determination of a group of people to change the course of history.

Let me take a moment to give a shout-out to the acclaimed director of “Selma,” Ava DuVernay. Ava, as you know, has graciously agreed to join us to share her own reflections on what this moment in America’s history means, what it meant then and what it means now.

For those of you who know the story of the march from Selma to Montgomery, watching it tonight will bring you into the swirling clouds of tear gas, the snarl of those police dogs and the sickening thud of the nightsticks used against the peaceful marchers on Edmund Pettis Bridge. For those of you who are hearing this story for the first time, you will soon know the bravery of so many great American heroes, including Congressman John Lewis, and one of my predecessors, Ambassador Andrew Young. Their stubborn determination and complete dedication to their cause should inspire us to try harder – and to be better – today.

Make no mistake, the men and women who marched at Selma in 1965 had little on their side: not the law, not public opinion, not force of arms. What they had was courage in the face of oppression, faith in their right to be treated equally, and an iron will to end the injustices that kept most African-Americans in the South from being able to vote.

Those injustices were many. Literacy tests, poll taxes, and hostile registrars intimidated an already marginalized population. Limited registration hours excluded them, as they toiled in working class jobs day and night. Police harassed them while they were waiting in line to add their names to the voting rolls. In Dallas County, Alabama, where Selma was located, more than half of the county’s residents were Black, but only one percent of them were registered to vote in 1965. Think of that. One percent.

And so the marchers marched. And as they did, their footsteps jolted a sleeping nation awake. They built a movement and, through their sweat and their sacrifice, they got the vote that they had been denied, and this is a truly inspiring story. But later tonight when the credits roll, let us not forget that the story is not complete.

On the 50th anniversary of Selma and standing on that infamous bridge, President Obama said “From the streets of Tunis to the Maidan in Ukraine, a new generation of young people can draw strength from this place.” Selma is a place where people without power changed forever a most powerful nation, and both their struggle against injustice and their courage to act are alive and well around the world. You’ll find the struggle in places like North Korea, where tens of thousands are being imprisoned in camps and subject to the most unspeakable tortures for so-called “crimes” ranging from speaking out to possessing a radio. In Russia, where telling the truth in print means risking your livelihood, or much more. Or in Burma, where claiming your identity as worthy of dignity and deserving of citizenship can mean risking your life.

And we ask of others what we ask of ourselves. The spirit of Selma must continue here in America. Just two years ago, the United States Supreme Court struck down a part of the Voting Rights Act – the legislation that was a victory for those marching on Selma and for our democracy. The decision effectively made it easier for states to put up obstacles to voting – for minorities, the poor, and the disabled. How is it possible in 2015 that one would put up obstacles to voting? President Obama has called on Congress to right this wrong, and throughout the country, civil society activists, many of them young people, are engaged in this modern day struggle for full civil rights. They and we will succeed. After all, our democracy is built on the hard work of righting wrongs again and again. Consider that just one month before the Supreme Court decision to degrade the Voting Rights Act, that same Supreme Court struck down the Defense of Marriage Act. It was a decision that brought us one step closer to ensuring that all Americans, including gay and lesbian Americans, have the same rights no matter who you are or who you love.

What will be our Selma? Against what injustices will we, will you, march? How will what you see up there on the screen inspire you to act out there in the world?

Thank you and enjoy the movie and the discussion.

AMBASSADOR POWER'S REMARKS ON CRISIS IN DEIR EZ-ZOUR

FROM:  U.S. STATE DEPARTMENT
Samantha Power
U.S. Permanent Representative to the United Nations
New York, NY
April 24, 2015
AS DELIVERED

Thank you, Minister Judeh, for dedicating today’s meeting to a crisis that so urgently demands the world’s attention. And thank you to our briefers – Under Secretary-General Amos, High Commissioner Guterres, Executive Director Cousin, and Special Envoy Jolie – for your appropriately stark, firm, and extremely moving briefings.

The United States would also like to recognize the dedicated humanitarian workers serving in UN agencies and other organizations who are putting their lives on the line to get assistance to people in the worst humanitarian crisis of our time. People like the two Syrian Arab Red Crescent workers who were killed on April 3rd while retrieving bodies of the deceased and preparing shelters for the displaced in Idlib. And people who are constantly looking for ways around seemingly endless obstacles to delivering vital aid, like WHO staffers who took advantage of a six-hour ceasefire last month in Aleppo to deliver medical supplies across lines. They reached 5,000 people – using pull-carts.

In Deir ez-Zour, approximately 228,000 residents are caught between ISIL, which has circled the city and systematically cut off humanitarian access, and regime forces, which prevent people from leaving. On April 13th, a one-year-old reportedly starved to death, and NGOs are receiving reports of young girls trading sexual acts for bread. While the ICRC was able to reach Deir ez-Zour with three airlifts in recent days – the first aid deliveries to the besieged city in nearly a year – residents of all ages remain on the brink of starvation.

Ghastly as it is, the situation in Deir ez-Zour is not an outlier. We are all well aware of the ongoing crisis in Yarmouk, where many thousands of Palestinians are still trapped and cut off from vital assistance. In Yarmouk, it is regime forces that are doing the blockading, as they have for more than two years. And since moving into Yarmouk weeks ago, ISIL and other armed groups have only exacerbated the suffering of residents by further limiting their movements.

As several of the briefers noted, the UN estimates that 440,000 civilians in Syria are living in besieged areas where most aid cannot get in and most people cannot get out. Only four percent of people living in besieged areas received food deliveries last month. Four percent. Health assistance reached less than one-third of one percent – 0.3 percent – of civilians living in besieged areas.

Siege is just one tactic used to prevent vital humanitarian aid from reaching people in need. According to the UN’s most recent report, nine WHO requests to deliver health assistance to locations in Aleppo, Daraa, Idlib and other governorates have gone unanswered by the regime. While life-saving medical supplies sit in warehouses, people die on operating tables; in crowded, ill-equipped field hospitals; and even in their homes – all from wounds and illnesses that would be treated with adequate resources. Meanwhile, nineteen requests for interagency convoys, which aim to reach the hardest-hit areas, are pending approval by the regime. Many have been stuck in limbo for months, exacerbating suffering and even causing death by bureaucratic delay. What possible excuse is there to not respond to a UN request? There is no excuse.

These tactics demonstrate the immense gap between the demands of this Council and the actions on the ground by parties in this conflict, particularly the Assad regime. Security Council resolutions 2165 and 2191 direct all Syrian parties to enable the immediate and unhindered delivery of humanitarian assistance by the UN and their implementing partners, yet the regime and ISIL are deliberately blocking such aid. And rather than fulfill their obligation to protect civilians, each – ISIL and the regime – deliberately targets civilians to advance their aims. We are past the point of highlighting or lamenting this enduring gap; we must come together to close it. The survival of millions of Syrians demands it – not to mention the credibility of this Council’s word. Our resolutions are currently being ridiculed by the Syrian regime. In the immediate term, aid must be allowed to reach besieged areas, and people must be allowed to leave besieged areas. Imagine being trapped – just imagine being a parent and being trapped.

International monitoring is crucial to ensuring that civilians leaving such areas are not arbitrarily detained, separated from their families, or harmed in any way – as happened in February 2014, when hundreds of people disappeared as they passed through government-controlled areas while leaving the besieged city of Homs.

Syria’s neighbors have shown remarkable generosity in helping those trapped in Syria as well as those who have managed to escape. Of the nearly four million people who have fled Syria, Turkey has taken in a staggering 1.7 million refugees. One in every four people in Lebanon is a Syrian refugee. And this unprecedented influx has demanded countries take robust measures to accommodate the new populations. In Jordan, for example, where the population of some northern cities has doubled since the arrival of more than 620,000 Syrian refugees, the government worked with development and humanitarian groups to come up with a comprehensive plan to respond to refugees’ diverse needs – from health and education, to security and drinking water.

While Syria’s neighbors have already welcomed unprecedented numbers of refugees, we strongly urge these countries to keep their borders open and ease restrictions that prevent the most vulnerable from reaching refuge. If the international community is going to ask more of Syria’s neighbors, who have already done so much, we cannot allow them to shoulder the impact of sheltering millions of refugees alone. And that is why, in addition to the $556 million that the U.S. has provided Jordan to support refugee programs and host communities since the start of the Syrian conflict, we announced our intention in February to increase annual bilateral assistance from $660 million to $1 billion over the next three years, given the extraordinary needs generated by this crisis and the extraordinary generosity of Syria’s neighbors.

In addition to helping Syria’s neighbors, all countries, including the United States, must welcome displaced Syrians in greater numbers. As the recent catastrophes involving refugees attempting to cross the Mediterranean demonstrate – many of the victims of which have been Syrians – people are willing to take tremendous risks to escape their country’s brutal violence. Just this week, Turkey’s coast guard rescued thirty Syrians aboard a sinking boat trying to reach Greece.

The disparity between what the international community is providing and what the Syrian people need is growing. At the end of last month, the Secretary-General convened a conference, together with the government of Kuwait, to raise funds toward the $8.4 billion that the UN needs to respond to the crisis. Only $3.6 billion has been pledged toward that goal. It is critically important that all countries, including members of this Council, make more substantive contributions. And it’s important that those countries that have pledged actually deliver promptly. The United States announced a new $507 million pledge in Kuwait last month, which brought our total contributions to Syria since the crisis began to $3.2 billion.

Today, in response to the devastating crisis in Yarmouk, we are announcing an additional $6 million in aid to UNRWA, to provide urgent assistance, both for the many thousands still trapped in Yarmouk and for other Palestinians and Syrians receiving a lifeline from the agency.

But even as we seek to fill these gaps, we must not lose sight of the foundational reason that Syria’s population needs humanitarian assistance, and that is the Assad regime. A regime that continues to torture, gas, barrel-bomb, and starve its own people. A regime whose brutality fed the rise of ISIL and other violent extremist groups in Syria. A regime that, according to the Syrian Network for Human Rights, killed an average of five children per day last month alone.

Let us be clear, ISIL could disappear tomorrow and the regime would still block UN convoys, ignore UN appeals and UN Security Council resolutions, torture detainees in its prisons, and use barrel bombs and chlorine chemical weapons to attack civilians. Partnering with a regime like this would not help us defeat violent extremist groups – it would only strengthen their appeal. The only viable political solution to this crisis is one without Assad in power; a political push at the highest levels, and a sincere and united effort to secure a political transition, is urgently needed and, of course, long overdue.

Let me conclude. National Geographic recently organized a photography camp in Jordan for teenage refugees from Syria. Twenty kids, ages 13 to 15, spent a week using cameras and words to tell their stories. A slideshow of some of their photos is online and I urge you all to look at it. A common thread cuts across the testimonies of the young Syrians: they want to go home. One participant, fourteen year-old Abdullah, fled to Jordan from Daraa three years ago. For an assignment to take a self-portrait, he took one with his face covered – a way, he said, to make himself anonymous. Speaking about his future, Abdullah said: “I hope to become an engineer and rebuild Syria, house by house, and build the biggest hospitals, the biggest mosques, the biggest schools, build bakeries, and rebuild our home…Insha’Allah, we will rebuild Syria the best we can. We are going to make Syria the most beautiful country and restore the life in it.”

Abdullah and so many young people from his generation are waiting to go home and rebuild. Who would deny them that opportunity? And who better than Syria’s young to motivate and unite us, the members of this Security Council, to work relentlessly to enforce our own resolutions so as to mitigate the suffering of the Syrian people and to find a political solution to this devastating conflict.

Thank you.

U.S. AMBASSADOR POWER'S REMARKS ON SYRIA'S CHEMICAL WEAPONS

FROM:  U.S. STATE DEPARTMENT
Samantha Power
U.S. Permanent Representative to the United Nations
New York, NY
April 16, 2015
AS DELIVERED

Thank you all for coming out. The first thing I want to do is to encourage you to, later this afternoon, have the experience that the Council just had, which is to listen to three remarkable individuals who testified to the experiences that they have had inside Syria, related to Syrian chemical weapons use – chlorine use most recently. And in the case of Qusai Zakarya, his experience of being left for dead in August 2013 in the chemical weapons attack in Moadamiya.

What the Council heard were testimonies from Dr. Tennari, who is a Syrian Arab Red Crescent-affiliated physician in the town of Sarmin, who dealt with the chlorine attacks that occurred in March – at great risk to himself and the other medical professionals he was working with tried to resuscitate and care for the people who came to his hospital, his impromptu field clinic, you might say, and were in desperate need of help. They were choking, they were vomiting and they bore all of the tell-tale signs of chemical weapons use. None of them, as he’ll describe, had fragments, shell fragments, or any of the kinds of injuries you would expect from conventional weapons use, or even from conventional barrel bombs use – if you can put it that way.

So Dr. Tennari described the horror of being in a situation where you can’t help everyone who comes to you: when parents are bringing their children and you are trying to resuscitate them and you cannot because you don’t have the medical supplies and because the toxic chemicals are so overpowering. We also heard from Dr. Zaher Sahloul who is the President of the Syrian-American Medical Society, who has made innumerable medical missions to Syria, who raises money here in this country and elsewhere to try to fund medical supplies, to try to care for people who suffer all injuries and ailments. And Zaher is just back from a medical mission where he talked to and saw the doctors and the survivors of the Sarmin attack, as well as others.

In terms of the Council, we held this meeting – we brought the Council members together with these remarkable individuals because the Security Council has come together to pass Security Council resolution 2118, which has come a long way in dismantling Assad’s declared chemical weapons program. But that resolution, which was a resolution – unusual for Syria that all members of the council were able to agree upon, and very much the product of U.S.-Russian cooperation in dismantling the Syrian chemical weapons program – has not resulted in the end of chemical weapons use in Syria. And the council, as you know, came together again recently in resolution 2209 to make very clear that chlorine use is a form of Syrian chemical weapons use. It’s not what people think of necessarily. They think of it being a household product. But when you stick it in a barrel bomb and you turn it into a toxic weapon, it is prohibited by the chemical weapons convention, it is prohibited by resolution 2118 and it is made very clear that it is utterly condemned and prohibited by resolution 2209.

So what we’ve done today is brought individuals who can testify to what happened; brought the facts to the council in as rapid and moving a way as we could do, and it is now in our view, incumbent on the Council to go further than we have been able to come to this point, to get past the old divisions, to draw on the unity that we have managed to show on the single issue of chemical weapons, and stop these attacks from happening. Now the form that that takes, of course, getting everything through 15 members of the Security Council is extremely challenging – there were 4 vetoes issued on Syria, on attempted Syrian resolutions in the past – but we feel as though anybody who witnessed what we just witnessed, and what you will hear from these individuals later today I hope, can’t be anything but changed, can’t be anything but motivated. And we need an attribution mechanism so we know precisely who carried out these attacks; all of the evidence of course shows that they come from helicopters, only the Assad regime has helicopters; that’s very clear to us. But we need to move forward in a manner that also makes it very clear to all Council members, and then those people responsible for these attacks have to be held accountable.

The very last thing I’d say, because I know there’s a lot of skepticism about accountability, because of the veto that we experienced when we put forward, with our partners, a referral of the crimes in Syria to the ICC: it is true that we failed to secure an ICC referral out of the Security Council, but it is not true that that means that accountability will not happen in Syria. Individuals who are responsible for attacks like that will be held accountable, and the documentary record is being built, the testimonies are being gathered and the long arm of justice is taking more time than any of us would wish right now, but this documentary record will be used at some point in a court of law and the perpetrators of these crimes need to bear that in mind.

Reporter: Ambassador, can you describe to us what the atmosphere was like in the room when you saw and heard this evidence?

Ambassador Power: The only analogue I can come up with is the experience of seeing the Caesar photos. I mean, the video, in particular, of the attempts to resuscitate the children – if there was a dry eye in the room, I didn’t see it. It was – it’s just devastating to see the facts of what this regime is doing. So people were visibly moved, people had questions, very fair questions, about “how do you know this?” and “what are the symptoms?” But for the most part, almost every Council member prefaced what they said by saying, “forgive me if I don’t use diplomatic language, but I am so moved and so overwhelmed by what I have seen,” and then they proceeded with their comments. It was an extremely unusual and very, very emotional meeting.

Reporter: How do you see an attribution mechanism – you mentioned an attribution mechanism?

Ambassador Power: You know, we have to work through the modalities on this. Traditionally, criminal responsibility is best established in a criminal tribunal, which is why we and so many Council members supported an ICC referral. But in this instance, that has not proven possible at this point. And of course, the Syrian authorities are in no positon to judge themselves, given that they are gassing their own people and dropping barrel bombs on civilian neighborhoods. So we need to think through what are the right modalities for an attribution mechanism. The OPCW already, as you know, has fact-finding missions that it has dispatched and they have produced very important layers and layers of testimonies and eyewitness reports and have shown, and reported with high confidence, that chlorine is being used as a chemical weapon in Syria,

systematically. But what the OPCW has never done is point the finger and establish attribution. And that has not been in their mandate up until this point. Bear in mind, again, that the traditional model for OPCW is parties to the chemical weapons convention who want the OPCW’s help getting rid of their chemical weapons stockpile or monitoring it – we haven’t had a circumstance like this where we have a party to the chemical weapons convention that is still prepared to use chemical weapons. And so OPCW and the UN Security Council have to come together and deal with a devastating and grotesque historical anomaly.

AMBASSADOR SAMANTHA POWER'S REMARKS IN PORT-AU-PRINCE, HATI

FROM:  U.S. STATE DEPARTMENT
Remarks at a Press Conference at the End of the Visit of the Security Council to Haiti
Samantha Power
U.S. Permanent Representative to the United Nations 
Port-au-Prince, Haiti
January 25, 2015

My name is Samantha Power and I am the American Ambassador to the United Nations and co-lead, with my colleague Cristian from Chile, of this trip. We, the very diverse members of the Security Council, had a very informative and productive visit to Haiti. We will have time in a minute for questions, but I will just share with you a few of the key messages that we heard from the wide array of actors with whom we met.

We are here as a Council, as Cristian has said, to support the Haitian people, not to pick sides, but to come away with a better understanding of how the international community can help Haiti.

We saw, on the one hand, great signs of progress, whether with regard to health or education or the removal of rubble or the resettlement of individuals displaced in the earthquake. But the vast majority of the individuals with whom we met also stressed, alongside this progress, the delicacy and fragility of an election year.

We heard from a large number of actors about the importance of strong checks and balances on governmental power, wherever it is exercised. And the Council stressed in all of our meetings, both with the President and his ministers, and with Senators and opposition parties, our strong support for the strengthening of checks and balances at a time when the Parliament is not performing its traditional role.

It is clear that leadership will have to be exercised in Haiti in a very inclusive and consultative manner in order to maintain the legitimacy of the state.

We heard a great deal about the importance of democratic expression by the people, but also we underscored how important it is that that democratic expression be done in a non-violent manner.

We came away even more convinced about the importance of compromise. Not everyone in Haiti will be able to get exactly what he or she wants in the coming days or in the coming years, but it will be critical that all actors put Haiti first, and put the overall welfare of Haiti before one’s own particular interests.

And two more points and then we’ll open it up for questions. We heard over and over again a message that we ourselves delivered, which is how critical it is that elections be held as soon as is feasible in a fair, transparent and inclusive manner.

People who have grievances or who have complaints about the past can invest their energies constructively in the election process. And we urge those who have complaints and concerns about recent events or about how Haiti got to this moment, to channel their energies into ensuring fair, transparent and inclusive elections.

And finally, we heard consistently about the importance of security as a foundation for Haiti’s democratic development. And here we witnessed today some of the work of the Haitian National Police, who have not only increased their numbers in the last several years, but have also deepened the quality of their policing. And the Security Council expressed its intention to stand in full support for the HNP and for the work, of course, that MINUSTAH is doing in support of the HNP, because the Haitian Police are the future of security in Haiti.


And we heard from government, from civil society, and from most of the opposition parties, great support and appreciation for the role that MINUSTAH has played in helping Haiti, and supporting Haiti through thick and thin and through significant ups and downs in recent years. And although we are getting on an airplane to go back to New York here in a few minutes, the Security Council is going to remain extremely vigilant over events in Haiti, and we encourage all parties in Haiti to get an election road map in place as soon as possible and to govern, and to perform the role of citizen, in a manner that respects and advances the rights of the Haitian people. And with that I think we are here to take your questions.

REMARKS ON UKRAINE BY U.S. UN AMBASSADOR POWER

FROM:  U.S. STATE DEPARTMENT 
Remarks by Ambassador Samantha Power, U.S. Permanent Representative to the United Nations, at a Security Council Stakeout on Ukraine
Samantha Power
U.S. Permanent Representative to the United Nations 
New York, NY
March 1, 2014
AS DELIVERED

Good evening. Today in the Council, the United States renewed its call for the international community to support the newly formed government of Ukraine and prevent unnecessary violence.

Unfortunately, the Russian Federation Council's authorization of the use of military force in Ukraine is as dangerous as it is destabilizing. It is past time for the threats to end. The Russian military must pull back.

It is ironic that the Russian Federation regularly goes out of its way in the Security Council chamber to emphasize the sanctity of national borders and sovereignty. Today, Russia would do well to heed its own warnings. Russia's actions in Ukraine violate Russia's commitment to protect the sovereignty, territorial integrity, and independence of Ukraine, and pose a threat to international peace and security. We have said from the outset that we recognize and respect Russia's historical ties to Ukraine. But instead of engaging the government of Ukraine and international institutions about its concerns for ethnic Russians, it ignored both and has instead acted unilaterally and militarily.

The United States, again, calls for the immediate deployment of international observers from either the OSCE or United Nations to Crimea and other parts of Ukraine to provide transparency about the movement and activities of military and para-military forces in the region and to defuse the tension between groups. The best way to get the facts, to monitor conduct and to prevent any abuses is to get international monitors and observers - including from UN and OSCE - on the ground as soon as possible. We are also working to stand up an international mediation mission to the Crimea to begin to deescalate the situation, and to facilitate productive and peaceful political dialogue among all Ukrainian parties.

Less than one week since the sun set on the Sochi Olympics, we are at a critical moment. The United States considers the current actions by Russia in Ukraine as unacceptable behavior for a G-8 member. The United States will stand with the people of Ukraine and the Ukrainian government in Kyiv. And as the President has said, intervention by the Russian military will be both a grave mistake and have costs and consequences.

With that, I'll take a couple questions.

Reporter: James Bays from Al Jazeera. I know that President Obama has been speaking to President Putin. President Putin now has this authorization, but there's clearly now a gap before he decides whether he's going to use it. Just, explain to us if you can on camera what is the message from the U.S. to President Putin right now?

Ambassador Power: The message is, pull back your forces. Let us engage in political dialogue. Engage with the Ukrainian government which is reaching out to you for that dialogue. The occupation . . . the military presence in Crimea is a violation of international law and we all need to allow cooler heads to prevail and to negotiate a peaceful way out of this crisis. Military force will never be the answer to this crisis.

Reporter: Ambassador, what are those costs that the United States says that Russia will suffer; and secondly, as a champion of human rights, doesn't it trouble you that there are four senior members of this Ukrainian government who have come from very far right, extremist parties?

Ambassador: I think what you heard from President Obama in the readout that the White House issued is that the United States has already suspended its preparation for the G-8 Summit that was supposed to take place in Sochi. And what I can say is that, again, the political and economic isolation that that represents is only going to deepen as this crisis escalates. And that is why, again, it is incredibly important that an international observer mission get into Ukraine as soon as possible; that all countries embrace the prospect of international mediation, such as that offered by the UN Special Envoy Robert Serry; and that we embrace the fundamental tenets of the UN Charter: territorial integrity, sovereignty and unity of Ukraine, avoiding the use of force, and the threat of force, and returning to the path of peaceful dialogue.

Thank you.

U.S. REP TO UN WARNS OF INACTION REGARDING SYRIAN REGIMES USE OF CHEMICAL WEAPONS

FROM:  U.S. STATE DEPARTMENT
U.N. Rep: Inaction Would Be More Risky Than Action in Syria
By Cheryl Pellerin
American Forces Press Service

WASHINGTON, Sept. 6, 2013 - The risks of inaction in response to the Syrian regime's use of chemical weapons against its own people would be greater than the risks of military action, the U.S. permanent representative to the United Nations said here today.

Speaking to an audience at the Center for American Progress, Ambassador Samantha Power characterized Syria as lying at the heart of a region critical to U.S. security -- a region that is home to friends and partners and one of the closest U.S. allies.

The Bashar Assad regime, Power said, has stores of chemical weapons that it recently used on a large scale and that the United States can't allow to fall into terrorists' hands. The regime also collaborates with Iran and works with thousands of extremist fighters from the militant group Hezbollah.

The ambassador acknowledged that questions are being raised about why the United States should be the world's police in such brutal situations and how the nation can afford another war in the Middle East.

"Notwithstanding these complexities, notwithstanding the various concerns that we all share," Power said, "I'm here today to explain why the costs of not taking targeted, limited military action are far greater than the risks of going forward in the manner that President [Barack] Obama has outlined."

The chemical weapons attack in Damascus on Aug. 21 killed more than 1,400 Syrian men, women and children, she said, and the U.N. assessed that although Assad used more chemical weapons on Aug. 21 than he had before, he's barely put a dent in his large stockpile.

"Obama, Secretary of State John F. Kerry and many members of Congress have spelled out the consequences of failing to meet this threat, Power said. "If there are more chemical attacks," she added, "we will see an inevitable spike in the flow of refugees on top of the already 2 million in the region, possibly pushing Lebanon, Jordan, Turkey or Iraq past their breaking points."

The Zaatari refugee camp is now the fourth-largest city in Jordan, she said, adding that half of Syria's refugees are children and that such camps are known to become fertile recruiting grounds for violent extremists.

Beyond Syria, the ambassador said, if violating a universal agreement to ban chemical weapons is not met with a meaningful response, other regimes will try to acquire or use them to protect or extend their power, increasing risks to American troops in the future.

"We cannot afford to signal to North Korea and Iran that the international community is unwilling to act to prevent proliferation or willing to tolerate the use of weapons of mass destruction," Power told the audience.

"People will draw lessons," she added, "if the world proves unwilling to enforce the norms against chemical weapons use that we have worked so diligently to construct."

Moving from discussing the risks of inaction to the risks of taking action, Power said the reason nonmilitary tools can't be used to achieve the same end in Syria is that the alternatives are exhausted.

"For more than a year," Power said, "we have pursued countless policy tools short of military force to try to dissuade Assad from using chemical weapons."

The ambassador explained how she and others engaged the Syrians directly and asked the Russians, the U.N. and the Iranians to send similar messages, but when Scud missiles and other weapons didn't stop the Syrian rebels, Assad used chemical weapons on a small scale several times, as the United States reported in June.

Her group then redoubled its efforts, backing the U.N. diplomatic process and trying to get the parties back to the negotiating table, she said. They provided more humanitarian assistance and on chemical weapons they went public with evidence of the regime's use.

"We worked with the U.N. to create a group of inspectors and then worked for more than 6 months to get them access to the country on the logic that perhaps the presence of an investigative team in the country might deter future attacks. ... We expanded and accelerated our assistance to the Syrian opposition. We supported the U.N. Commission of Inquiry," the ambassador said.

She noted that Russia, often backed by China, blocked every relevant action in the U.N. Security Council, even mild condemnations of the use of chemical weapons that ascribed blame to no particular party. "And on Aug. 21, [Assad] staged the largest chemical weapons attack in a quarter-century while U.N. inspectors were sitting on the other side of town," Power said.

It was only after the United States pursued such nonmilitary options without deterring chemical weapons use in Syria that Obama concluded that a limited military strike is the only way to prevent Assad from using chemical weapons as if they are a conventional weapon of war, the ambassador added.

"From the start of the Syrian conflict, the president has consistently demonstrated that he will not put American boots on the ground to fight another war in the Middle East," Power said. "The draft resolution before Congress makes this clear."

The president is seeking public support to use limited military means to degrade Assad's capacity to use these weapons again and deter others in the world who might seek to use them, the ambassador said. "And the United States has the discipline as a country to maintain these limits," she added.

Limited military action will not solve the entire Syria problem, Power noted, but the action should reinforce the larger strategy for addressing the crisis in Syria.

"This operation, combined with ongoing efforts to upgrade the military capabilities of the moderate opposition, should reduce the regime's faith that they can kill their way to victory," the ambassador said.

"We should agree that there are lines in this world that cannot be crossed and limits on murderous behavior -- especially with weapons of mass destruction -- that must be enforced," Power said. "If we cannot summon the courage to act when the evidence is clear and when the action being contemplated is limited, then our ability to lead in the world is compromised."