[Hi folks, here is Jack Straw's (the British Foreign Secretary) proposedspeech on the subject of 9.11 in New York to the Labour Party in Brighton,
to be delivered today. As it says, check against delivery. If Blair's speech
-- also to be delivered today -- comes through I will put it on the list.
John.)
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http://www.labour.org.uk/
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http://www.labour.org.uk/lp/new/labour/URBANITY.PORC_NEWS_DISPLAY?p_rowid=AA
AHzjAAHAAAjd5AAA

Our challenge is to create a safer world
02-OCT-01
Speech by Jack Straw, Foreign Secretary, Labour Party conference, Brighton
2001
--- CHECK AGAINST DELIVERY ---
Conference, as the tone and dignity of our proceedings have shown, the sense
of grief and loss at the atrocities of 11th September gets deeper day by
day.

Those atrocities not only shocked the world, they have changed the world.
They have changed our collective sense of peace, security and well-being.
And they changed fundamentally the imperatives by which we maintain
international order.

From the horror of the second world war, my parents' generation and their
parents sought to create a new optimism, a new world order which came to be
enshrined in the charter and institutions of the United Nations.
This system of international law has broadly worked well.

But by its relative success it has also bred a degree of complacency.
And we may have sought to avoid the uncomfortable truth that there are some
who wish completely to destroy our values and our way of life.
In our history we have been here before.

In the 1930s, there were those, from both main parties, who argued that war
in any circumstances was to be avoided.

But theirs was a fundamental mistake. For they believed that the fascists
could be reasoned with - that they were subject to the same standards of
human decency as the rest of us.
They were not.

And it was great figures in our party like Clem Attlee and Ernie Bevin who
were amongst those who recognised this uncomfortable truth early on.
In the same way today, if we believe that those who planned, organised and
perpetrated the attacks in New York, Washington and Pittsburgh can be dealt
with by negotiation and reason, we wholly delude ourselves.

Like fascists, these people are driven by hate, by violence and by
destruction.

Their activities are amongst the greatest threats to peace and security
across the world.

But this is not a fight just against the terrorists.

It is a fight against the perverted ideology of terrorism, an ideology which
has no regard for human life, not even the lives of its adherents.
And we need to deploy every weapon - military, diplomatic, economic,
political - to undermine the roots and the causes of this terrorism, to
stifle its support, to target its funding, and to remove its lethal
machinery.

People from 62 different countries of the world - representing one third of
the total membership of the United Nations - were killed on September 11th.

So it is fitting that it is the United Nations - that great creation of our
parents and grandparents - which has been playing such a crucial role.
Both the UN Security Council and the General Assembly have issued unanimous
demands for those responsible, and for those who harbour and support them,
to be held to account.

And last Friday, the Security Council agreed further measures to target
terrorist groups and their funding across the world.

We in Britain are playing a key role in the UN, as we are in NATO and the
European Union.

And our work goes beyond our traditional alliances.

Conference, as many will know, I was in the Middle East last week.
One of the countries I visited was Iran.
Iran has suffered greatly from the Taleban's wicked regime.
Up to two million refugees have already sought safety in Iran, and the
state-sponsored drugs trade from Afghanistan continues to cause Iran severe
problems.

I do not disguise the fact that there are still disagreements between our
two countries.
But dialogue is the way forward.
And building on the steps taken by our Prime Minister and Robin Cook, that
was my purpose last week.

Across the Islamic world, there has been horror and revulsion at the
atrocities in the United States, and a determination to defeat terrorism.
In Cairo last week, the spiritual leader of the Sunni Moslems, the Grand
Imam told me of his horror at the terrorist attacks in the United States
which he described as contrary to the teachings of Islam.
Of course, a small minority of extremists may seek to pervert religion for
their own twisted ends. But that phenomenon is hardly confined to Islam.
It is worth remembering that the worst atrocities in the 20th century were
committed in the heart of Europe.

What happened on September 11 was as abhorrent to the Islamic faith as it
was to every other one of the world's great faiths.

Conference, the consequences of September 11th are bound to consume the
energies of governments and their leaders across the world - and no leader
has been more tireless, more skilled, more influential than our Prime
Minister, Tony Blair, in helping to build the coalition and consensus to
defeat this terrorism.

But he and I and Geoff Hoon and Clare Short well recognise that the current
situation makes the rest of our international agenda our engagement with the
rest of the world even more important.
Whether it's world poverty, humanitarian aid, human rights, the Balkans,
Zimbabwe, and the Middle East.

Conference, there are few regions of the world which, over the decades, have
suffered more from acts of terrorism than the Middle East, and these still
continue.

Terrible violence has been visited on the Israeli people in recent years and
has gravely undermined their right to live in peace with security. The
Palestinian people have suffered grievously, and they too deserve to live in
peace and security.

So we, with the rest of the international community, must redouble our
efforts to help bring peace and security to Israel and the Palestinians: the
path I urged Prime Minister Sharon and Chairman Arafat to take last week.

The only sustainable future for the region is through dialogue. There is no
other way.

Conference, the terrible events of September 11 can never be erased from our
memory, nor should they be.

As we have seen, humankind has great capacity for evil.
But I believe it possesses a greater capacity for good.
As we have seen the nations of the world really have come together to fight
this global scourge of terrorism.

There has been an unprecedented solidarity with the United States.
For us in the United Kingdom this has been automatic.
After all, without the United States' assistance in not one but two World
Wars, we would have none of the freedoms or prosperity we enjoy today.
Support for the United States has also come from countries who until
recently were its sternest critics.

We must build on this momentum.
And our challenge is to create not just a safer world but a more inclusive
world, which deals with the wider global issues.
For these new global challenges do require global solutions...
- the globalisation of free and fair trade, including the breakdown of
tariff barriers which work against farmers in Africa;
the globalisation of democracy and human rights;
of action on the environment;
and the globalisation of the fight against poverty and conflict.

By working together as one, we can achieve more than by working alone.
Conference, from all the conversations I've had with constituents, and their
children, and friends, I know that people are worried.
Not least because the threat appears to be hidden from view.
Yes, this is a new situation, and all of us recognise our responsibilities
to act according to international law, to act proportionately, to think
through the consequences of what we propose to do.
We have to be vigilant, but we have to be calm too, and need to recognise
that we have truly faced greater dangers in the past and yet come through
stronger, not least because of the timeless strength of our values.
*****
Conference, if we are resolute about these values and principles which we
hold so dear, and resolute about defending them, then we will succeed.
--- CHECK AGAINST DELIVERY ---

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