UN Chief Appeals for Immediate Global Ceasefire

UN Secretary-General António Guterres (right) holds a virtual press briefing on the ongoing global Coronavirus (COVID-19) outbreak. At left is Melissa Fleming, Under-Secretary-General for Global Communications on 19 March 2020~ ***UN Photo by Evan Schneider***

UN chief António Guterres called for “an immediate global ceasefire in all corners of the world” appealing to warring parties to “end the sickness of war and fight the disease that is ravaging our world.”

In a virtual press briefing from New York on 23 March, Guterres said the world faced a “common enemy” in COVID-19 adding that the virus “does not care about nationality or ethnicity, faction or faith.”

The Secretary-General said, “Meanwhile, armed conflict rages on around the world” adding that the most vulnerable, women, children, people with disabilities, the marginalized and the displaced, “pay the highest price” and are also at “the highest risk of suffering devastating losses from COVID-19.”

Guterres noted that in war-ravaged countries, “health systems have collapsed,” and health professionals, “already few in number, have often been targeted.”

He said, “The fury of the virus illustrates the folly of war. That is why today, I am calling for an immediate global ceasefire in all corners of the world. It is time to put armed conflict on lockdown and focus together on the true fight of our lives.”

In a message to warring parties, Guterres said “Pull back from hostilities. Put aside mistrust and animosity. Silence the guns; stop the artillery; end the airstrikes. This is crucial; to help create corridors for life-saving aid to open precious windows for diplomacy; to bring hope to places among the most vulnerable to COVID-19. Let us take inspiration from coalitions and dialogue slowly taking shape among rival parties in some parts to enable joint approaches to COVID-19. But we need much more. End the sickness of war and fight the disease that is ravaging our world. It starts by stopping the fighting everywhere. Now. That is what our human family needs, now more than ever.”

Guterres said his special envoys would be working with parties to different conflicts for this global call to a ceasefire to translate into concrete action and to create the conditions so that the response to COVID-19 can be much more effective. He said the capacity to respond in conflict areas is very limited and if fighting goes on, it could lead to a devastating spread to the pandemic.

The Secretary-General said he sent a letter to the leaders of the G20 apealing for stronger coordination in suppressing disease and ensuring massive support to the developing world, while calling for a huge package responding to the economic and social consequences. He said this package should not be like that of 2008, which was essentially aimed at the financial sector.

Responding to questions, Guterres said it was true that the COVID-19 crisis is diverting attention from many other issues. He said the world needed to be able to respond to the crisis while also addressing other major concerns. He added, “When I ask for a global ceasefire, the global ceasefire is, of course, absolutely essential for an effective response to the crisis in areas of conflict but is also a value in itself. War doesn’t make any sense when we have an epidemic, but war doesn’t make any sense in any circumstances.”

The UN chief said he was feeling “strongly determined.” He said this was the moment in which the UN must be active and fully assume its responsibilities “first doing what we have to do ‑‑ our peacekeeping operations, our humanitarian agencies, our support to the different bodies of the international community, the Security Council, the General Assembly but, at the same time, it’s a moment in which the UN must be able to address the peoples of the world and appeal for a massive mobilisation and for a massive pressure on governments to make sure that we are able to respond to this crisis, not to mitigate it but to suppress it, to suppress the disease and to address the dramatic economic and social impacts of the disease.”~UNIFEED